Immersion unlocks language for Cree students (fwd)

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Immersion unlocks language for Cree students

Bob Florence
The StarPhoenix

Monday, February 05, 2007
http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/third_page/story.html?id=453e26b0-4518-4556-8c62-d0bae581b0ce

It's Wednesday morning, and Karen Rabbitskin's Grade 1 class is
practising phonics, 11 students all talking at once.

In a classroom without desks, they sit at tables arranged in a U-shape,
five of them seated along one side, six on the other. Rabbitskin stands
at the front. She holds an open book and points to a line of block
letters.

Together the students pronounce the different sounds, their voices
rising as they go along in the way kids do.

"Ah, ow, ay, ew . . ." they say, speaking in Cree.

Cree immersion is a bright idea that was introduced in Saskatoon two
years ago with a group of 13 kindergarten kids at Confederation Park
School. Coupled with the Grade 1 class added last September, there are
now 23 students enrolled in the program. The numbers will multiply
again in the fall when a Grade 2 class joins the lineup.

Rabbitskin dreams of a day when there is not just a class, but a whole
school in the city dedicated to the teaching of everything Cree. She
envisions students from K to 12 learning the language and drumming up
the history and maintaining the Cree traditions.

But that's for another day. Today, she has 11 Grade 1 students on the
go.

After the class finishes the group phonics lesson, Rabbitskin gets one
of her students, a boy named Ceejay, to stand up and recite the sounds
on his own.

For all but two of the students, Cree is a new language. Growing up in
the city, immersed in urban life, most of them speak only English.

Ceejay, the story goes, was visiting his grandparents at their home on
the reserve during Christmas, when, drawing on lessons he'd learned in
class, he and his grandfather started talking together in Cree. They
had never done that before.

"Sometimes they just amaze me," Rabbitskin said later, when her class
was in the schoolyard at recess. "I hear them using words I've barely
introduced and this is high-level Cree, some words are 15, 18 letters
long.

"They know how important the language is. They understand why they need
it. They're like sponges. 'Give me more.' "

Rabbitskin has been a teacher for 20 years. Although her experience was
working with higher grades -- she taught at the middle school level --
she was at the top of the most-wanted list when administrators went
looking for someone to lead this new project.

Harry Lafond, education director with the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation,
proposed the idea of a Cree immersion program. Jim Jutras, director of
Saskatoon Public Schools, endorsed it. That was June 2004.

In the fall of 2005 the door to Rabbitskin's classroom at Confederation
Park School opened.

"The No. 1 concern of parents was that by having their kids in this
program they were going to miss out on (conventional) learning
opportunities," said Cort Dogniez, co-ordinator of First Nations and
Metis education with Saskatoon Public Schools. "English is all around
us. They're not going to miss out there. These students aren't losing
English, they're gaining another language."

Donna Partridge says the gains go beyond language.

"It's an identity," she said.

Partridge enrolled her son, Emmanuel, in the immersion program. She has
lived in the city for 10 years and has two older children, age 12 and
15, who are growing up fluent in English, but fractured in Cree.

"That's my fault," she said. "I don't speak it enough at home."

For Emmanuel, she wants a reconnection.

"It's important for him," she said. "For us."

Not only has Partridge bought into the immersion program, she's now
helping deliver it. She works with Rabbitskin as a teacher's assistant.

On this morning Partridge leads the kindergarten class, her group on the
other side of the room from the first graders. In the middle of the room
is a big tipi.

Throughout the room are pictures and symbols of Cree culture.

Some of the curriculum is adapted from a program in Onion Lake, much of
it is what Rabbitskin has developed on her own.

Rabbitskin said one of her upcoming lessons was going to be about
legends.

"I'll tell them the story about the big bear and the little bear and the
stars," she said. "I'll tell them where the story originated.

"We teach songs, rhymes, prayers. And humour. There's a lot of humour in
Cree."

Classes in Cree are offered at three high schools in Saskatoon. Dogniez
says this program goes beyond that. More than learning the language,
this is about preserving a culture.

Said Rabbitskin: "Hearing the kids talking, seeing our language saved
and revived, it makes me want to cry.

"I feel so good."

bflorence at sp.canwest.com
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2007